Varden Pacific currently manages over USD250m and for the full-year 2012 the flagship Varden Pacific Opportunity strategy returned +29.1 per cent net of fees.

The firm was set-up by Shawn Stoval, (former head of Morgan Stanley’s North American structured credit client trading group), Dennis Lin (former global head of USD interest rate swap trading at Credit Suisse) and Brad Scelfo (a former senior director within the structured and derivative-based product groups at Credit Suisse and Barclays Capital).

Since inception Varden Pacific’s sole focus has been dedicated to capitalising on international credit opportunities and residual dislocations within the structured credit markets, and specifically within the corporate-backed structured credit space.

Lin says the global market for corporate-backed structured credit not only has lower competition, but also has identifiable structural characteristics that make it notably more attractive than the broader credit space.

“Regulatory catalysts, changes in rating agency methodology and new mark-to-market rules are pressuring holders to sell these assets for non-economic reasons. With few product experts globally and significant barriers to entry, a material supply/demand imbalance has occurred. We look to utilise our product and industry expertise to identify these ‘orphaned’ assets, in turn providing our investors attractive returns on a risk-adjusted basis," says Lin.

Lars Bjoergerd, managing director, MCAM Group, says: “We are currently seeing significant demand among international investors for non-correlated strategies such as structured credit. There are only a handful of teams globally with an as proven, deep expertise and success in investing in the corporate-backed structured credit space as Varden Pacific, and we are exceptionally pleased to be working with Shawn and the rest of the team in growing their international asset base by raising capital for the strategy from allocators in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.”